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Friday, 22 June 2012

National Theatre Live's Frankenstein

I've been a bit quiet this last couple of weeks as I've been trying to
organise holidays to get away after a very busy time at work, all of
which is very stressful in itself and now I need two holidays to make up
for it! In amongst all this panic and madness, something amazing
happened. I went to see both versions of Frankenstein.

You may or may not know that I'm a big fan of Benedict Cumberbatch
and I would have loved to have gone to see Frankenstein live at the
theatre, but it just wasn't feasible. So when I found out it would be
shown in my local cinema I was ecstatic!

National Theatre Live takes stage shows from the National Theatre in
London to cinemas all over the world by making live recordings of plays,
which I think is absolutely fantastic! I love going to the theatre and
there are great one's here, but you don't get to see productions like
this unless they tour.

I first heard about this screening months ago, so I'd been regularly
checking the cinema's website, waiting for tickets to be released. Then
when they were I kept an eye on the seating plan to see how quickly it
was filling up. I'm an Unlimited cardholder which is great for discounts
to NTL productions, but doesn't allow booking prior to the event. In
the week before the showing I received an email to say that all
Unlimited cardholders now get 50% off NTL showings, so that was even
better!

The time had come and I was so excited! The first showing starred
Benedict Cumberbatch as the Creature and Jonny Lee Miller as Dr
Frankenstein and I was blown away.

From the minute it started it was so engaging and there was a real
theatre feel to it. I became aware that I was sitting with my mouth
constantly open and my eyes wide open, absorbing everything.

If I try to describe it in depth it'll sound stupid (I've already
tried a number of times!), but Danny Boyle did a great job. It was
stunning, emotional and at times humorous.

I went to see the alternative cast version with Jonny as the Creature
and Benedict as Victor Frankenstein last night. It was fantastic but
may have been spoiled slightly by my having seen it before. Don't get me
wrong, it was also amazing, but I knew what was going to happen, so I
could sit back and enjoy it, taking in how the actors interpreted the
roles differently and taking in more of the detail.